Review: Firefox 3.6 brings joy to Web devs, not just users

Mozilla has officially released Firefox 3.6, a significant update of the …

Mozilla's Firefox got a bit hotter today with the official release of version 3.6, a noteworthy update of the popular open source Web browser. It's an incremental improvement that introduces a modest assortment of new features and expands the browser's support for emerging Web standards. It will add fuel to the fire as the flame-throwing fox continues to scorch Internet Explorer's declining marketshare, bringing more choice and openness to the Web.

It's been roughly six months since the release of Firefox 3.5, Mozilla's last major update. This new release is less ambitious, but just as solid. Although there aren't a lot of significant user-facing features to talk about, there are some compelling improvements for Web developers. In this review we will look at both sides of the browser.

Personas

One of the most visible new features in this release for regular end users is the Personas system, which brings support for lightweight theming to Firefox. It allows users to apply a custom visual style to the browser's user interface elements, including the toolbars, menus, tabs, and status bar. It's intended to provide a simple alternative to Firefox's existing theming engine. Unlike conventional Firefox themes—which can profoundly alter the look, feel, and behavior of the program at a multitude of different levels—a Persona is like a decal that you can apply to the top layer.

The Personas feature was first introduced by Mozilla Labs in in 2007, where it was created as a hobby project by Mozilla's Chief Innovation Officer (yes, that's his real title) Chris Beard. At the time, Beard was the vice president of the Labs group and was interested in exploring some possibilities for lowering the barrier to entry for theming and blurring the boundary between Web content and the browser's user interface.

The Personas feature has been available to users through a browser add-on, but now the project has matured and Mozilla has made it a built-in part of the browser. Mozilla recently launched a Personas Gallery, which has over 35,000 individual Personas, most of which are unforgivably hideous. The skins in the gallery exhibit a diverse assortment of visual elements, ranging from images of the popular singer Lady Gaga to anime characters, marijuana leaves, and various Firefox logos.

Although many of them are garish abominations that make the browser look like a mutant circus with leprosy, there are some fairly nice ones that can spice up your toolbar with a bit of extra color. In the Abstract category, you can find some simple gradients and textures that aren't too distracting. I grudgingly admit to liking the Star Trek set even though it's kind of tacky.

To boldly go where no user interface... ever should

When you hover your mouse cursor over an item in the Gallery, the Persona will be applied instantly in preview mode, meaning that it will revert when you move your cursor away. To apply a Persona, you just have to click the "Wear It" link that will appear over the thumbnail in the gallery when you hover. The individual Personas will show up on the theme list in the browser's preference dialog you. You can switch between Personas just like regular themes. It's worth noting, however, that you cannot use a Persona and a full theme at the same time. When you enable a Persona, Firefox will switch back to the default theme and then apply the Persona on top of that.

PluginCheck: protecting users from plug-in vulnerabilities

Mozilla has a pretty strong track record on delivering fast fixes and pushing its users onto the most recent version of Firefox. This helps insulate users from security vulnerabilities and ensures that they benefit from the latest bug fixes. Unfortunately, not all software vendors are as mindful. Vulnerabilities in Adobe's Flash plug-in, for example, are becoming increasingly notorious as malware distribution vectors and can sometimes expose users to security risks.

Mozilla says that users don't always understand the role that plug-ins play in the Web experience and might not even realize that they have plug-ins installed. This is a major impediment to giving users the ability to protect their own security. The PluginCheck system is a new feature that Mozilla has introduced to address some of the problems caused by faulty browser plug-ins. It gives the browser the ability to make the user aware when a vulnerable plug-in is detected.

Image Credit: Mozilla's Jonathan Nightingale

The PluginCheck feature is made possible by a Web service that Mozilla launched last year which matches the user's plugin versions against a remote database of plug-in information. The backend Web service, called PFS2, is also used to help users find the appropriate plug-ins to enable support for certain kinds of content.

In order to function properly, the browser has to periodically phone home in order to request information from the plugin database—much like what Firefox does already to check for browser and add-on updates. For PluginCheck, the browser sends the PFS2 server the user's Firefox version number, operating system name, and browser locale (the language that is used in the user interface). The server will respond by providing a JSON data structure that includes detailed metadata about the latest version and previous vulnerable versions, including URLs with information about the relevant vulnerabilities. You can see documentation for the PFS2 Web API on the Mozilla website.

PluginCheck is only one part of Mozilla's plugin protection arsenal. The browser already has a plug-in blacklist system that can be used in an emergency to forcefully disable plug-ins that have extreme defects. As some readers may recall, Mozilla put the blacklist to use last year when a serious vulnerability was uncovered in Microsoft's WPF plugin for Firefox.

123 Reader Comments

I dropped Firefox for Chrome because all I wanted was a snappy browser with a clean interface. I don't care much about Personas (the only app where I ever used that type of customization was Winamp, because some skins were really more usable than the default) or plugins other than the typical Flash, Java or Silverlight (although I did end up installing Flashblock in Chrome) and the like.

So what I'd like to know, and I feel it's missing in this review, is whether there would be any reason to go back to FF. How does it compare to the latest versions of IE (very favourably, I'd bet), Chrome, Opera or Safari from a user's standpoint?

In the end I'll probably download it and give it a try, but I have very little motivation to stop using Chrome. Mind you, this is my very own personal opinion and not a «you're an ass if you don't use browser "x"» post.

Firefox 3.6 brings too little, too late. Mozilla devs could do a lot more to advance the state of the web by working on WebKit, reporting bugs in Opera, or contacting webmasters of standards-offending websites than continuing to work on Firefox.

Originally posted by niindre:Now if they could just make a version for OSx that didn't suck.

What's wrong with FF on OS X? I use it all the time on a 2007 Macbook and don't notice any significant difference from the PC version. In fact it's quite nice that they match up so well, because I don't change browsing behaviors when I switch systems.

These browser stories are nice and all but...There is really only one reason people use Firefox: Plugins.There is no way a browser maker can offer all desired functions users want. They only way to do that is with a plugin system. Firefox has one of the most powerful plugin systems around.

I mean, tabbed browsing was great, but that was like seven versions ago. I'll probably upgrade to the next version due to lack of support for the current one I'm using now.

How about a story about some plugin? I quite liked the story about the SkipScreen plugin awhile back (even if coverage of the actual plugin was somewhat unintentional).

Been switching back and forth between 3.5 and 3.6 for the past two months. 3.6 is much snappier than 3.5, and much better at memory and cpu usage between exactly the same workloads. It's a terrific upgrade so far.

Originally posted by daemonios:I dropped Firefox for Chrome because all I wanted was a snappy browser with a clean interface. I don't care much about Personas (the only app where I ever used that type of customization was Winamp, because some skins were really more usable than the default) or plugins other than the typical Flash, Java or Silverlight (although I did end up installing Flashblock in Chrome) and the like.

So what I'd like to know, and I feel it's missing in this review, is whether there would be any reason to go back to FF. How does it compare to the latest versions of IE (very favourably, I'd bet), Chrome, Opera or Safari from a user's standpoint?

In the end I'll probably download it and give it a try, but I have very little motivation to stop using Chrome. Mind you, this is my very own personal opinion and not a «you're an ass if you don't use browser "x"» post.

I'm just waiting on NoScript. The ADBlock needs some works because as of now it only hides the add not actually block them.

Originally posted by boyCommaThat:I wish these new css features like rounded corners and gradients were not browser specific. I thought the idea was to move away from coding for a specific browser. Still, undeniably great.

A agree with daemonios, I use Chrome now most of the time (for the 'browsing') and Firefox for the WebDev, (when things need to be diagnosed or debugged). I guess Chrome is like a sports car, useful and quick for simple things, and Firefox is more like a tank, a reliable beast with enormous power. Internet Explorer on the other hand runs like a bike with 2 square wheels, but I have to use it to check if my sites display well. Since Chrome got extensions, it's good on its way to replace Firefox almost completely over here. But I'm used to Firebug, so I guess it'll still take a while for Chrome to implement something like that...

Originally posted by eMagius:Firefox 3.6 brings too little, too late. Mozilla devs could do a lot more to advance the state of the web by working on WebKit, reporting bugs in Opera, or contacting webmasters of standards-offending websites than continuing to work on Firefox.

I've been using the betas on OSX for quite awhile, so 6 is no stranger. It seems to offer no significant speed bump over Webkit, even with my very minimal set of add-ons (all web-developer related). (7-8 bounces of the icon on startup, versus 2-3 for Webkit; I'm not geek enough to dig into memory/CPU usage, just "look and feel" of speed).

The gradient-handling is a little flakey: doesn't always make nice with a -webkit gradient spec in the background, and certainly not with a W3 background linear gradient spec (all these, distinctly unlike the very friendly behavior for border radius specs).

It doesn't matter anymore - the concept of major version HTML specs is dead. Rather they're just going to start adding features to the spec. It takes too damn long to formulate a new spec, get all the input, have some browser vendors implement it and come back with feedback, etc. and then publish it.

Next up is the <device> tag. Want to video conference from your web browser? Its coming!

Originally posted by eMagius:Firefox 3.6 brings too little, too late. Mozilla devs could do a lot more to advance the state of the web by working on WebKit, reporting bugs in Opera, or contacting webmasters of standards-offending websites than continuing to work on Firefox.

CSS gradients! I actually like the uploader concept. I don't see how these features really help web developer until they are cross-platform. Is Mozilla the new Microsoft when it comes to implementing new one-off standards?

Originally posted by chromal:So far, 3.6 seems every bit as crashy as 3.5. I could care less about skin-ability or whatever, would like them to concentrate on making it reliable.

Hm. On my machines, including with sleep, I can't recall the last time FF crashed. My second work machine, XPsp3, runs FF for weeks at a time with ~12-15 tabs and only comes down when I reboot because *XP* does something stupid.

Originally posted by supafreak:CSS gradients! I actually like the uploader concept. I don't see how these features really help web developer until they are cross-platform. Is Mozilla the new Microsoft when it comes to implementing new one-off standards?

No, Mozilla adopts the standards syntax when it acually becomes a standard. MS hasn't a lot in the past. Mozilla is just staying ahead of the game by making features work and then changing the API to fit the standard (when its official) later.

i am using personas. yes, many are hideous, but its also a very fast way to change colors. for example, mine is jet black. i mean #000000 black. if i get tired of it, i can change it in just a second or two. this is, to me, a better solution than installing a new theme and then restarting. my wife likes it as well, she typically uses brighter themes though.

as far as 3.5 crashing is concerned... using it here at work in XP SP3, and at home in ubuntu 9.10. it has never crashed on me once, and i am running ~20 plugins. i dig it. chrome is sweet too, but is too.... simplistic for me. i suppose i don't see what all the fuss is about.